... It is a breezeless and cloudless noon. Under the dazzling downpour
of light the hills seem to smoke blue: something like a thin yellow fog
haloes the leagues of ripening cane,--a vast reflection. There is no
stir in all the green mysterious front of the vine-veiled woods. The
palms of the roads keep their heads quite still, as if listening. The
canes do not utter a single susurration. Rarely is there such absolute
stillness among them: upon the calmest days there are usually rustlings
audible, thin cracklings, faint creepings: sounds that betray the
passing of some little animal or reptile--a rat or a manicou, or a
zanoli or couresse,--more often, however, no harmless lizard or snake,
but the deadly fer-de-lance. To-day, all these seem to sleep; and there
are no workers among the cane to clear away the weeds,--to uproot the
_pié-treffe, pié-poule, pié-balai, zhèbe-en-mè_: it is the hour of
rest.
[Illustration: PITONS DU CARBET
"_The horizon is almost wholly hidden by surging of
hills: silhouettes of blue and violet... a vapory huddling
of prodigious shapes._"]
A woman is coming along the road,--young, very swarthy, very tall, and
barefooted, and black-robed: she wears a high white turban with dark
stripes, and a white foulard is thrown about her fine shoulders; she
bears no burden, and walks very swiftly and noiselessly.... Soundless as
shadow the motion of all these naked-footed people is. On any quiet
mountain-way, full of curves, where you fancy yourself alone, you may
often be startled by something you _feel_, rather than hear, behind
you,--surd steps, the springy movement of a long lithe body, dumb
oscillations of raiment;--and ere you can turn to look, the haunter
swiftly passes with creole greeting of "bonjou'" or "bonsouè, Missié."
This sudden "becoming aware" in broad daylight of a living presence
unseen is even more disquieting than that sensation which, in absolute
darkness, makes one halt all breathlessly before great solid objects,
whose proximity has been revealed by some mute blind emanation of force
alone. But it is very seldom, indeed, that the negro or half-breed is
thus surprised: he seems to divine an advent by some specialized
sense,--like an animal,--and to become conscious of a look directed upon
him from any distance or from behind any covert;--to pass within the
range of his keen vision unnoticed is almost impossible.... And the
approach of this woman has been already observed by the habitants of the
ajoupas;--dark faces peer out from windows and door-ways;--one
half-nude laborer even strolls out to the road-side under the sun to
watch her coming. He looks a moment, turns to the hut again, and
calls:--
--"Ou-ou! Fafa!"
--"Êti! Gabou!"
--"Vini ti bouin!--mi bel négresse!"